Recently, various media such as a DVD (Digital Versatile Disc), a Blu-ray Disc (registered trademark), or a flash memory have been used as a data recording medium. Particularly, recently, memory cards such as Memory Sticks (registered trademark), SD cards, USB memories in which a flash memory having a large storage capacity is installed have been actively used. A user may record content such as music or movies in these various information recording media (media) and install the information recording medium in a reproducing apparatus (player) to reproduce the content.
In addition, in recent years, the content has been actively distributed through a network, and the form of a process of purchasing the content by the user has been gradually shifted from a process of purchasing a disc where the content is recorded in advance to a process of downloading the content from a server connected to the network.
As specific forms of the content purchasing, besides the process of purchasing the media such as ROM discs, there are the following forms of the content purchasing.
(a) EST (Electric Sell Through) where a user apparatus such as network connectable terminal or PC is used to be connected to a content provision server, so that the content is downloaded.
(b) MoD (Manufacturing on Demand) where a public terminal installed at a convenience store or a public space such as a train station is used to record the content on a medium (memory card or the like) of a user.
In this manner, if the user has a medium such as a memory card for recording the content, the user may freely select and purchase a variety of content from various content sources such as a content provider and record the content on the medium of the user.
In addition, the processes of EST, MoD, or the like are disclosed in, for example, JP-A-2008-98765.
However, copyrights, distribution rights and the like to a large amount of the content such as music data or image data are reserved by the producer or seller. Therefore, in the case where the content is to be provided to the user, there are predetermined limitations on use. In other words, only a user having a legitimate right to use is permitted to use the content, so that control is generally performed to prevent unregulated use of such unauthorized copying.
As one of the regulations of content use control, there is a CPRM (Content Protection for Recordable Media). For example, this is a control configuration where the content is encrypted and recorded on the data recording media such as a memory card, a verification value based on an ID unique to the medium (media ID) is recorded, a verification process based on the verification value is performed during reading of the content from the media, and the content use control is performed. Herein, with respect to the media IDs, it is assumed that different IDs are separately recorded on the different media.
However, for example, in the current state, it may not be said that the management where different unique IDs are recorded for each memory card such as an SD card is reliably performed.
FIG. 1 illustrates a sequence of manufacturing a general memory card. As illustrated in FIG. 1, the memory card 10 includes a controller unit 11 and a flash memory unit 12.
The controller unit 11 is manufactured by a controller manufacturing company (controller vendor) 20 which manufactures the controllers.
In addition, the flash memory unit 12 is manufactured by a flash memory company (flash memory vendor) 30 which manufactures flash memory units.
In a general process, the parts manufactured by the vendors are assembled in a final process so as to complete the media 10.
The media IDs are frequently recorded under the management of the controller vendor 20 as a manufacturer of the controller unit 11. There is no problem if the recording of the media ID is performed under the proper management on the controller vendor 20 side. However, in the case where the proper management is not provided, for example, a plurality of the media having the same media IDs are mass produced and supplied to the user.
If this problem occurs, it is impossible to perform the content management based on the aforementioned CPRM, that is, the content use control depending on a configuration where the media ID is a value unique to each of the media. As a result, there is the potential for unauthorized use of the content.